Skin monitor gives frequent glucose readings

Using a low-level electrical current across the skin, the GlucoWatch Biographer device can supply as many as three glucose measurements per hour.

Also, the readings are comparable in accuracy to those obtained using finger-prick blood samples, researchers from the manufacturer (Cygnus, Redwood City, California) report in the medical journal Diabetes Care.

The device is worn like a wristwatch and measures glucose in fluid exuded from the skin, rather than in blood.

It can provide people with diabetes and their doctors "with important information about changing glucose levels around mealtimes that mirrors changes in blood glucose levels," Cygnus medical director and co-author of the study, Dr. Richard C. Eastman, told Reuters Health.

This is the only practical means of getting such information, he added, as "the costs, discomfort, and inconvenience of conventional glucose monitoring for obtaining several values before and after meals are prohibitive."

Eastman and his colleagues studied 124 people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes requiring insulin. They used the Biographer at home during the day and took finger-prick glucose measurements hourly, for five consecutive days. The Biographer automatically took up to three measurements per hour over a 12-hour period.

The researchers found that glucose values were almost as unstable before meals as they were afterwards. The Biographer was effective in tracking trends and yielded results similar to those obtained with finger-prick blood samples.

The availability of this information, Eastman concluded, "could influence decisions about meal timing, content, and insulin injection dose and timing, supplementing management decisions which are typically made based on a single static blood glucose reading before meals."

The US Food and Drug Administration approved the GlucoWatch Biographer for use in adults in March 2001 and for children and adolescents the next year.

SOURCE: Diabetes Care, September 2004.